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Poland will temporarily suspend the right to asylum

Poland will temporarily suspend the right to asylum

Poland plans to temporarily suspend the right to asylum as part of a strategy to curb illegal migration as tensions rise with Belarus.

Warsaw accuses Minsk of deliberately sending migrants to the border crossing.

"One of the points of the migrant strategy will be to temporarily suspend the right to asylum", said Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk on October 12.

"I will ask for this, I will ask for recognition in Europe for this decision", he said before his group, the Civil Coalition, the largest member in Poland's ruling coalition.

Tusk has said that the right to asylum is being exploited by the authoritarian leader of Belarus, Alyaksandr Lukashenka, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and people smugglers, acting against the right to asylum.

Russia and Belarus deny that they are responsible for orchestrating the crisis.

Migration has been high on Poland's agenda since 2021, when it began to face large numbers of migrants from the Middle East and Africa.

Since taking office in December 2023, Tusk has pushed hard on migration policies, raising voices from activists who hoped he would abandon the policies of the previous nationalist administration.

Marysia Zlonkiewicz from the Granica group, a non-governmental organization that helps migrants at the border, said that the suspension of the right to asylum is against the Constitution and could lead migrants into the hands of smugglers./ REL

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